Wrist Spin Bowling

[sadspinner]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I always thought that pointing the foot leg side was the othodox way and it always felt more natural. I changed this due to the falling over problem. I had a mini session today and I'm not sure if this is the solution

can I ask when you all pivot do you go up on your toes in the delivery or in the follow through? I've looked at stills of warne and Mcgill and they seem to change constantly. warne in particular seems to have planted foot quite far into his action. I think going up on my toes earlier may help me go forward instead of to the side.

I think mine point to leg slip for the small leg break and straighter for the attempted big leg break, as i find the latter helps to get more side spin, but having said that I am very round arm. I know it does not make much sense but that is the way it works with me.

As others said do not get too bogged down by tiny details. I would concentrate on getting a good rhythm, even if you count out loud at first, for me that is the basis. Once you get a decently accurate line and length, then start thinking at tweaking things. But if you are running up thinking my back leg has to be parrallel to the crease, i must have my wrist cocked, my front foot must point to leg slip, i have to get my arm more vertical, i had better release the ball now, i must keep my front leg braced, now my left hand should be reaching out, my right leg should be coming forward, my left arm should be tucked into my ribs, my right shoulder must be facing the batsman, my arm has to go past my left hip etc be sure that the delivery will go anywhere but where it should go. I think I echo my friends' opinion to say we all had that phase and still get them, but we try to send these demons away from our thoughts.

By the way paulinho are you of portugese descent just out of curiosity.

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

That's good news, I caught a glimpse of it just as we went out to field today, I need to have a look as I bowled terrible today Wrist Spin Bowling: Shocking 6-0-61-2 but then there is a big list of excuses on the blog. I can kiss my nice stats goodbye after this!

ive heard you say it yourself before that the figures count for nothing. ignore them. your team was obviously outclassed from what you have said, and you were the only one capable of taking any wickets.

and looking at the score card, and its hard to make out exactly what it says, but it seems like your first over went for 19 and your last for 25? take those 2 out of the equation and youd have been 4-0-17-2, which would have been more in keeping with the economy of the other bowlers, but again, you were the only one to take wickets!

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

On the subject of tweaking I've been making sure my arm comes down across the body past the hip, it seems to help with increasing the spin. On the subejct of spin.....

I've never watched the ball going away from when I'm bowling till recently (From my main blog)..........

The first ball I bowled since dislocating my fingers hit the stumps middle and leg coming in from the legside, so that was a promising start! The hour that I bowled went really well and backed up the notion that sometimes taking a break from intensive practice is a positive move that sometimes moves your bowling forwards. I mentioned either here or elswhere that I never watch the ball as it flies through the air, I'm totally focused on where it's going to land and whether it's going to turn off the wicket, but I've been involved in a lot of forum dicsussions on how much does the ball need to spin in order that it turns off the wicket. As a consequence the day or so before I did my finger I'd taken to watching the ball as it flew through the air away from me and observed how much it was rotating and this was with this new relaxed grip technique that I've developed. The things is it truns what looks to me as being relatively slowly, but despite the speed of the rotation it breaks off the wicket quite well! But today with my absence from bowling and looking at my bowling with fresh eyes and now watching the ball go away from me in flight I noticed that one of my first balls left the hand heading for the off-stump rotating almost 90 degrees to the the wicket and then it drifted in towards the leg-side landing outside the leg-stump and then breaking back in and hitting Middle and Off! Not a big break maybe 6" outside of leg, but nonetheless a good delivery! So perhaps I do get the ball to drift or maybe this is new with this new delivery technique, or is it that I just have never watched the ball flying through the sky before? But it's a good start after my finger incident.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Nice one with the Sky on demand link - I'm watching it now and there's some good stuff here, how long is it left available for non-sky'ists like me?

 

[sadspinner]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

By the way how did many of you start leg spin. I remember when I was about 12, finding a book in our library by learie constantine. It was a sort of small cricket manual. I read it but what fascinated me was the word googly. I read the explanation and remember trying it for hours with a tennis ball. Then completely forgot about cricket for 10 years, and went to london for a holiday and saw ian botham on his return after smoking pot i believe, and saw him smash the new zealanders. In our country, cricket is only played by 3/4 clubs. So whenever I try to practice, I get quizzical looks.

Apart from that I always seemed to have a fascination in spinning table tennis and tennis balls. Even when playing tennis I preferred playing bachand chops as we used to call them, and be fascinated with how low they kept and how they skidded off the surface.

Then there was shane warne. I think does were my encounters that got me close to leg spin. For you poms and aussies obviously, I presume many of you had a bat in your cot, a backyard the size of a wicket and a dog to retrieve the balls you bowled. By the way if you find thet dog it is clarries, he seems to have lost it about 70 years ago!

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

We had a good session yesterday, we had a hit out in the middle and not in the nets and I had my son bowl at a good young batsman for an hour.

This kid was very good off the back foot but anything pitched up and spinning he found a problem. anything a fraction short he pulled or cut with power.

My young blokes bowling plan A is simple, he starts off with a big legbreak, that can pitch anywhere from way outside leg or off stump as long as it spins big. Then he bowls a few accurate legspinners on the stumps followed by a topspinner. Lately he bowls a slider sometimes instead of the topspinner.

I bowled some off spin which the kid played very good, but he could not handle my legspin which had too much bounce for a little guy.

An England win in the ashes is a great thing for cricket, thousands of English kids will want to be Stuart Broad rather than some footballer. (The constant heading of the football can lead to brain damage I am sure of that after hearing footballers interviewed). Crowd behaviour at cricket is also a great advertisement for the game.

 

[Paulinho]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

By the way paulinho are you of portugese descent just out of curiosity.

It's a nickname I picked up from being pretty good at footy (soccer) so no portugese or brazilian I'm afraid, just the footy skills (i wish).

As for why wrist spin, well the first year my school had a cricket team I was asked what part I wanted to play in it, it was 1993 and I'd just seen a certain S K Warne bowl for the first time. told my teacher I wanted to bowl wrist spin and was told it was really hard, but I found that I could spin the ball. played for three seasons and got pretty good. After that didn't play again until 2007 so wish I'd stuck at it but it's coming back to me slowly.

And yes you are right I bowl my best when all I think about is what shot I want the batsman to play and nothing else.

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

essentially, yeh. you hold it with our normal grip but drag your hand down behind it. personally id call it an arm ball, my idea of what a slider is is VERY different. Warne even said that sometimes he would hold the ball cross seam, so then it is literally a low speed seam delivery with more backspin.

my idea of a slider is a genuine back spinner delivered using the round-the-loop method. its tough to bowl it straight though, maybe impossible? im not far enough into using it yet to know if it has a purpose as a straight on delivery, possibly not. most times it will turn, sometimes VERY sharply. but the fact i never know what its going to do means the batsman has no chance lol

That slider from the loop is a great backspinner. It was originally called the skimmer by doug ring who showed it to benaud.

Simpson showed warne how to bowl it but warne and jenner developed another '"slider" that is actually the first variation the legspinner used before the wrongun and perhaps even the topspinner. Grimmett also bowled this simple slider as a variation and describes it in his books.

If you can get the doug ring slider straight it is an lbw special, a little off line and it will spin on any surface albeit slowly sometimes.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

By the way how did many of you start leg spin. I remember when I was about 12, finding a book in our library by learie constantine. It was a sort of small cricket manual. I read it but what fascinated me was the word googly. I read the explanation and remember trying it for hours with a tennis ball. Then completely forgot about cricket for 10 years, and went to london for a holiday and saw ian botham on his return after smoking pot i believe, and saw him smash the new zealanders. In our country, cricket is only played by 3/4 clubs. So whenever I try to practice, I get quizzical looks.

Apart from that I always seemed to have a fascination in spinning table tennis and tennis balls. Even when playing tennis I preferred playing bachand chops as we used to call them, and be fascinated with how low they kept and how they skidded off the surface.

Then there was shane warne. I think does were my encounters that got me close to leg spin. For you poms and aussies obviously, I presume many of you had a bat in your cot, a backyard the size of a wicket and a dog to retrieve the balls you bowled. By the way if you find thet dog it is clarries, he seems to have lost it about 70 years ago!

Years ago we lived in a council house that had a yard that was long and thin with a lawn big enough for cricket, the house was a 1920's house when they used to have big back yards. These days my house is a 1970's job barely big enough to swing the cats that come in and crap everywhere. Never played cricket, but like you I read a story years ago in a Boys book, may have been The Eagle back in the 1960's and that had an account of someone bowling wrong uns and I found that fascinating. I'm a Warne product first spotted him in the days when Nasser Hussein was the England captain and was mesmerised by what he was doing, so different to all the crap that used to turn me off of cricket back in the 70's and 80's waiting 10 minutes for someone to walk the length of the cricket pitch and then run in and have the ball hit for 4 or what have you - so boring. An account of why I started is here - Wrist Spin Bowling: Introduction
I certainly didn't have a bat in the cot, where I lived it was very much football, football and more football and very working class, so cricket looked like a posh gents game and that was very much reflected by what you saw on the tele (1960's).

Saddo what's a 3/4 club?

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

We had a good session yesterday, we had a hit out in the middle and not in the nets and I had my son bowl at a good young batsman for an hour.

This kid was very good off the back foot but anything pitched up and spinning he found a problem. anything a fraction short he pulled or cut with power.

My young blokes bowling plan A is simple, he starts off with a big legbreak, that can pitch anywhere from way outside leg or off stump as long as it spins big. Then he bowls a few accurate legspinners on the stumps followed by a topspinner. Lately he bowls a slider sometimes instead of the topspinner.

I bowled some off spin which the kid played very good, but he could not handle my legspin which had too much bounce for a little guy.

An England win in the ashes is a great thing for cricket, thousands of English kids will want to be Stuart Broad rather than some footballer. (The constant heading of the football can lead to brain damage I am sure of that after hearing footballers interviewed). Crowd behaviour at cricket is also a great advertisement for the game.

Yeah I've been discussing this with people today and I think that the Ashes has gone pretty much un-noticed by Joe Public. The majority of SKY subscribers here in the UK would be football fanatics and today and yesterday the kids and their Dads would either be out on the fields practicing or watching the football on the tele as the season has just started - even at our club they were flitting between watching the Ashes and football. Sky is expensive over here and what with there being no coverage other than 3/4 of an hour at 7.15 in the evening I've noticed that the Ashes has pretty much passed everyone by apart from cricket fans and players whereas in 2005 it was on real tele and everyone could watch it for free and they did. The atmosphere around the ashes then was mental, whereas this year it's been discreet to say the least. I think in chasing Murdoch's Aussie Dollar the ECB have done themselves a dis-service, as you say with terrestrial coverage there may have been 100's of thousands of kids that may have gone out and bought a bat and a ball tomorrow or in the coming weeks, but the sons of Football loving Sky owners wouldn't have even been aware of it let alone watched it and been inspired.

 

[Paulinho]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

An Aussie side with no spinner at the Oval. what is the world coming to?

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

That slider from the loop is a great backspinner. It was originally called the skimmer by doug ring who showed it to benaud.

Simpson showed warne how to bowl it but warne and jenner developed another '"slider" that is actually the first variation the legspinner used before the wrongun and perhaps even the topspinner. Grimmett also bowled this simple slider as a variation and describes it in his books.

If you can get the doug ring slider straight it is an lbw special, a little off line and it will spin on any surface albeit slowly sometimes.

Yeah - warne came across as being very open minded as to what a slider is and the blokes in the video had their own versions and Warne was accepting of it suggesting that if you've got your own way of bowling it, it's not neccesarily wrong, just different, just as long as it goes in straight and skids in - it's a slider. In which case I've got a slider.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

An Aussie side with no spinner at the Oval. what is the world coming to?

Yeah it's looking like a mistake, the part timer North was turning the ball well, let's hope Swanney can do something, shame he's not a wrist spinner though.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

ive heard you say it yourself before that the figures count for nothing. ignore them. your team was obviously outclassed from what you have said, and you were the only one capable of taking any wickets.

and looking at the score card, and its hard to make out exactly what it says, but it seems like your first over went for 19 and your last for 25? take those 2 out of the equation and youd have been 4-0-17-2, which would have been more in keeping with the economy of the other bowlers, but again, you were the only one to take wickets!

Yeah, I'm not that fussed, I've improved so much this year and I took the only 2 wickets in the game which is some consolation, no one else got anywhere near it whereas I dropped a bowled and caught off the middle of the bat which I nearly kept hold of and I had another ball dropped in the field off a skier. But we had one bloke who's nearly in his 60's if not in his 60's who uses a walking stick, he may as well have been sitting down, it was a lost cause from very early on and I was knackered having played in the morning. Ah well better luck in 2 weeks time I hope.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I'm liking the sounds of this though The Edge: Who will be the new Andrew Flintoff? - Times Online I don't know anything of this bloke other than the fact that he is supposed to be our most promising wrist spinner - but I didn't have a clue about the fact that he was a good all - rounder and now he's being touted as the possible replacement for Flintoff.

 

[Paulinho]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Yeah - warne came across as being very open minded as to what a slider is and the blokes in the video had their own versions and Warne was accepting of it suggesting that if you've got your own way of bowling it, it's not neccesarily wrong, just different, just as long as it goes in straight and skids in - it's a slider. In which case I've got a slider.

I learned both sliders as a kid I was shown the warne slider for the same reasons that warne mentioned. when the out field is wet and the ball becomes harder to grip the backspinner can be hard to bowl so the seam up slider becomes handy. also the seam up warne slider looks more like a leg break so can be harder to pick. they both have their own advantages for example if you get the back spinning version slighlty wrong it can turn into a massive leg break.

my teacher always said that the leg break should be 95% of your deliveries but that a ball that goes straight on is a great variation to have as I was 15 at the time he said I shouldn't learn the flipper for another 3 years so these were both good deliveries to have.

it's also worth mentioning that many people who complain about their big leg break going straight on may be bowling a backspinning slider without realising it.

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

its a huge step it seems though from county to international at the moment. Harmison, Onions, and Bell have all been top of their respective bowling/batting tables this season, miles ahead of anyone else. none of them have set the world alight for England. Bopara came into the England line-up last year off the back of an excellent county campaign. Rashid is potentially an awesome prospect, his one day bowling looks ok, thats all ive physically seen of him. he wasnt turning the ball that much, but that appears to be more because the one day game doesnt permit it. Shane Warne had some very positive comments about him during the coverage today, those dont come cheaply. so he must be pretty good, ive heard he can actually turn the ball pretty big as well when the situation allows. i know nothing of his batting at all, when they were talking on Sky Sports today about him hitting centuries regularly that was the first time id heard him referred to as an all rounder! although i was playing on "The Ashes" playstation game the other day and noticed that his batting rating on there is pretty good, which had me wondering.

im not sure anyone is going to replace Freddie though. i hate it when the media latches onto stuff like this. as the Barmy Army sings every match, "theres only one Freddie Flintoff". the same as there was only one Ian Botham. whoever becomes the next great all-rounder (assuming anyone else does!) will be the only one of themselves. i dont really agree with the hype surrounding immediate replacement of certain players with a player of identical stature and style. i think its been a huge problem for Australia in recent years, when all their legends retired, and everyone gets marked by the world class standards that preceeded them. Nathan Hauritz isnt playing this test match, even though the wicket suggests that he should have been the first name on the team sheet, because every spinner in Australia is judged by the wicket taking standards of Shane Warne. it just isnt realistic, he was a "freak of nature" as Paulinho so kindly put it lol, there may never be another leggie as good as Warne in the rest of history. if took decades to get from Grimmett to Benaud, and Benaud to Warne. the same as it took decades to get from Botham to Flintoff.

personally i reckon Stuart Broad is most likely as the next good (maybe great) all rounder. hes been in the England lineup since such a young age (for average international players anyway) that we forget that hes still younger than most players who would be making their debut. and hes got an impressive haul of wickets, and every now and again puts on awesome batting displays. under pressure he struggles, but thats got to be something that will change with age and experience. his dad was an opener for England and averaged almost 40. Stuart averages over 30 and has 58 wickets in 21 matches at just 23 years of age! his batting average is only 3 shy of Ravi Bopara (supposedly a number 3!!), and his bowling average is only 3 behind Jimmy Anderson who is probably Englands best bowler in the last 18 months.

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

it's also worth mentioning that many people who complain about their big leg break going straight on may be bowling a backspinning slider without realising it.

its pretty hard to bowl it dead straight even when youre trying to lol (the slightest amount of side spin on it, even just a few degrees of seam angle, results in a low bouncing leg break), id think to bowl it by accident is probably less likely than the ball just not taking to spin at large angles, the wrist deviation to get it straight is huge and also incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. at present i have to bowl mine with a slightly quicker arm (which isnt ideal for disguising it) just so that i can get my wrist to move through the angles it needs to without it hurting and without bending my elbow too much and "chucking" it down the pitch.

i find that a 90 degree seam has probably a 20-40% chance of actually turning, most times it will skid through. 10 degrees backwards of 90 (e.g. slight backspin) and its much more succesful as a big leg break (as many former pros state), for me it works best between 30-45 degs of over spin though. thats what turns most consistently and can still turn big. on a really rough hard wicket the big leg break would probably be deadly though.

something else ive been pondering lately, following a couple of net sessions against batsmen and also watching Graeme Swann in some depth this weekend, is bounce. i love the additional bounce of overspun leg breaks, i actually genuinely think that varying bounce could be more effective than varying turn! both in combination is obviously the perfect situation, but if anyone struggles to turn a leg break big, just bowling them small and varying the overspin seems like it could cause massive issues. you watch good batsmen playing spin and they arent too worried about the turn. so long as its pitching in line with the stumps they look to play straight, assuming that the ball will turn away from their legs and stumps, so they play straight in case it doesnt and hope that it turns past the outside edge! this is dependant on even bounce though. much the same as a batsman playing a seamer on length, you expect the ball to act consistently. if you watch one jump up at them then the shots get really ugly! edges and gloves seem to get found more often than not.

as something to verify my thoughts, consider Anil Kumble. he bowled with a predominantly overspun technique and is the 3rd highest wicket taker of all time. Indian pitches assisted him with bounce, and maybe practicing in nets is what is giving me the impression of bounce causing as much/more damage than turn since the wickets are as hard as concrete (literally!!). also watching the cricket at the Oval this weekend the pitch was breaking up, but underneath it was still very hard as it always is. but the club i am "playing" for produces extremely hard wickets. they also seem to break up nicely in the footholes over a couple of matches! on a soft wicket bounce might play a lesser part. Warne used to vary his overspin a great deal too, his standard deliveries were over spun leg breaks with varying turn and bounce, then he had the big leg break as an occasional variation, along with the half dozen (or more) other variations he possessed. what do other people think?

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

i went to my clubs net session this evening. it was dead again, at least an adult batsman showed this time, a new guy who was actually very good! i bowled maybe 30 deliveries at him, they pretty much all sucked. i got one good length leg break in that barely turned but he could only defend it. probably 3 or 4 half decent ones, and one awesome attempted top spinner that ended up a wrong'un (apparently i can bowl them!! it only came back in about 6" though). i landed it right in the block hole and it was fractions away from finding the gate and bowling him, he inside edged it and was full of praise for the delivery. if only the other 2 dozen deliveries hadnt gone leg side...

so then him and the other guy who showed who was bowling went off for a pint in the bar, and i toiled away for another hour or so on my own. things werent working well, so i thought sod it, lets try running up again, since id gone back to my 2 step approach last week and it had been working ok, but not great. and this evening it just wasnt working at all, and i cant stop bowling leg side, no matter how much i adjust my angles.

so first ball i got it absolutely spot on, it came out leg side still but the ball zipped, drifted literally 2 feet in flight, landed 2-3 feet outside leg stump and span back over middle stump with a ton of bounce!!! so i figured there was some experimentation to be done there. ive got rid of the issues that caused my run up technique to not work before (instead of bouncing into the delivery i stay very flat, i almost drag my feet but without slowing down), but im still struggling for consistency. when i get it right its awesome. but more often than not the ball either isnt flighted and drops miles short, gets dragged down into the ground 10 feet in front of me, or flys away into the side of the nets on the leg side. i think 80% of my problem is gripping the ball though (it seems to slip out more easily given the additional arm momentum at the delivery point), and 20% not rotating over my front leg consistently enough. i was landing more deliveries on off stump than my 2-step technique, and when i was they were always a good length. the in between balls were pretty awful, but then so is delivering every ball 2-5 feet outside leg stump. its going to get called a wide either way, or get spanked for 4/6. so i think maybe i should just get my run-up working and stop trying to find a happy place in between. in the long term it makes no sense to perfect a flawed method just so i can try to get a game before the season ends and then spend the first 2 months of winter catching up (especially since practice time will be less easy to come by once it gets cold/wet/both).

2 things about running up that are encouraging me more than anything else are firstly that the ball turns at least the same amount, maybe more, but its at least 10mph faster in getting there (maybe more). even my brother, who is about as poor in technique as a "batsman" can get, has the time to wait on his back foot and pick my deliveries off the pitch. now that wont be possible.

secondly, the extra speed in flight is generating (what to me seem like) insane amounts of drift, even off of deliveries that dont come out of the hand that well and dont spin that much. so long as they are flighted, they move sideways.

ive been reading back through my posts in this thread lately to look at my progress, and its really quite useful to see what issues and solutions ive found on a given day and how ive ended up back at the exact same problem later lol. it seems like a big circle, but at least i know what i need to sort out first now. detailing every detail of every practice has its merits, even if i am rambling on most of the time lol.

 

[Paulinho]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I bowl my big leg break in the Philpot style so back towards my body. Sometimes when I try and spin it really big I can end up rolling the fingers down the back of the ball rather than flicking the wrist. this is neither a proper big leg break or a backspining slider but is a delivery that I've cocked up by trying to hard.

I think you're right in saying that if your leg break consistently doesn't turn that this is probably not the explanation. But if every once and a while it happens and you think why the hell did that happen it might be.

As for the elbow bending (chucking) when using this delivery I followed Philpot’s advice which is to hold the ball out in front of you with a straight arm and flick the ball back towards your chest. This gets the ligaments and tendons used to flicking the wrist in this position with a straight arm.

The overspun leg break can be lethal on the correct surface. Especially if you have a back spinning delivery which stays low as a variation.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

i went to my clubs net session this evening. it was dead again, at least an adult batsman showed this time, a new guy who was actually very good! i bowled maybe 30 deliveries at him, they pretty much all sucked. i got one good length leg break in that barely turned but he could only defend it. probably 3 or 4 half decent ones, and one awesome attempted top spinner that ended up a wrong'un (apparently i can bowl them!! it only came back in about 6" though). i landed it right in the block hole and it was fractions away from finding the gate and bowling him, he inside edged it and was full of praise for the delivery. if only the other 2 dozen deliveries hadnt gone leg side...

so then him and the other guy who showed who was bowling went off for a pint in the bar, and i toiled away for another hour or so on my own. things werent working well, so i thought sod it, lets try running up again, since id gone back to my 2 step approach last week and it had been working ok, but not great. and this evening it just wasnt working at all, and i cant stop bowling leg side, no matter how much i adjust my angles.

so first ball i got it absolutely spot on, it came out leg side still but the ball zipped, drifted literally 2 feet in flight, landed 2-3 feet outside leg stump and span back over middle stump with a ton of bounce!!! so i figured there was some experimentation to be done there. ive got rid of the issues that caused my run up technique to not work before (instead of bouncing into the delivery i stay very flat, i almost drag my feet but without slowing down), but im still struggling for consistency. when i get it right its awesome. but more often than not the ball either isnt flighted and drops miles short, gets dragged down into the ground 10 feet in front of me, or flys away into the side of the nets on the leg side. i think 80% of my problem is gripping the ball though (it seems to slip out more easily given the additional arm momentum at the delivery point), and 20% not rotating over my front leg consistently enough. i was landing more deliveries on off stump than my 2-step technique, and when i was they were always a good length. the in between balls were pretty awful, but then so is delivering every ball 2-5 feet outside leg stump. its going to get called a wide either way, or get spanked for 4/6. so i think maybe i should just get my run-up working and stop trying to find a happy place in between. in the long term it makes no sense to perfect a flawed method just so i can try to get a game before the season ends and then spend the first 2 months of winter catching up (especially since practice time will be less easy to come by once it gets cold/wet/both).

2 things about running up that are encouraging me more than anything else are firstly that the ball turns at least the same amount, maybe more, but its at least 10mph faster in getting there (maybe more). even my brother, who is about as poor in technique as a "batsman" can get, has the time to wait on his back foot and pick my deliveries off the pitch. now that wont be possible.

secondly, the extra speed in flight is generating (what to me seem like) insane amounts of drift, even off of deliveries that dont come out of the hand that well and dont spin that much. so long as they are flighted, they move sideways.

ive been reading back through my posts in this thread lately to look at my progress, and its really quite useful to see what issues and solutions ive found on a given day and how ive ended up back at the exact same problem later lol. it seems like a big circle, but at least i know what i need to sort out first now. detailing every detail of every practice has its merits, even if i am rambling on most of the time lol.

There you go Jim, that's the solution to your Wrong Un issues. Bowl your top Spinners, keep your arm vertical and then dip your shoulder and work on just getting the ball coming out of the up-turned wrist.

I found that as well, I kept going round in circles as such, trying things adding things and then finding that I'd come back round to the original problem, but I then found that generally there had been an improvement. I think one of the keys things you could do is video your bowling action and see how it looks.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I learned both sliders as a kid I was shown the warne slider for the same reasons that warne mentioned. when the out field is wet and the ball becomes harder to grip the backspinner can be hard to bowl so the seam up slider becomes handy. also the seam up warne slider looks more like a leg break so can be harder to pick. they both have their own advantages for example if you get the back spinning version slighlty wrong it can turn into a massive leg break.

my teacher always said that the leg break should be 95% of your deliveries but that a ball that goes straight on is a great variation to have as I was 15 at the time he said I shouldn't learn the flipper for another 3 years so these were both good deliveries to have.

it's also worth mentioning that many people who complain about their big leg break going straight on may be bowling a backspinning slider without realising it.

Paulinho, sounds like you have a bloody good teacher at school teaching you cricket!

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

There you go Jim, that's the solution to your Wrong Un issues. Bowl your top Spinners, keep your arm vertical and then dip your shoulder and work on just getting the ball coming out of the up-turned wrist.

id pretty much already figured that the top spinner was the way for me to go. i think i identified it as a future avenue in a post earlier in the week. i expected it to take a long time before the top spinner would become an off spinner though, but it seems to be coming together more quickly than i expected.

im still going to work on the flipper version though, it has so many added benefits over a conventional wrong'un.

 

[Paulinho]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Paulinho, sounds like you have a bloody good teacher at school teaching you cricket!

He was great (sadly no longer with us) and a leg spinner so was chuffed that someone wanted to do it when everyone else wanted to be a seamer. Shame I left a 15 year gap between what he showed me and taking it up again.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Maybe another idea could be to simplyfy your whole approach. Maybe just in the short term try a technique whereby the key issue isn't how much it spins? Maybe adopt my 3rd finger only approach which still produces a small leg break, but then allows you to look at other aspects of your bowling and this might free you up to examine your line and length issues and forget for the minute all the more complex issues such as drift, spin and flight?

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

i had a semi productive practice today. im working with the run up again, and things have improved a great deal.

ive discovered the root cause of all of my issues today, which has to be a big positive, i havent 100% corrected things though.

issue 1 was my line, it kept going leg side and was impossible to correct. this was primarily off of a standing delivery, e.g. no run up, just a step onto my front foot and bowl. i couldnt work out why, and nothing i tried corrected it.

however bowling with a run up seemed more consistent in line. so i compared the 2 methods and ive discovered that running up gets me more side on at the point of delivery. i dont rotate any more than i do from a standing delivery, and thus bizarrely i am actually facing more towards the leg side, but somehow the momentum delivers the ball inline with the stumps on a FAR more consistent basis. i tried bowling off a standing delivery with the first step being taken from about 45 degrees to the side, and this worked better than it had before. but the future of my action has to be with a run up, so ive decided to just stick at that.

id say about 45% of the balls now pitch inline with the stumps, with 15% outside off stump by a sensible margin (a few inches), 5% outside off stump by a stupid amount, 30% outside leg stump by a sensible margin (again, a few inches), and 5% go miles down the leg side. this is a massive improvement. before id say that only 20% went inline with the stumps, 5% outside off, and the other 75% outside leg stump by varying amounts!!

off of the run up im less consistent in turning the ball (not helped by my fingers feeling very "sluggish" and stiff today, not sure why, but i just didnt have complete control of them like i normally do. so lots of balls were getting stuck or coming out badly), sometimes it turns big, sometimes it skids through, most of the time it will turn to some extent. this is exaggerated by inconsistencies in flighting the ball, i find this much harder to do at higher speeds, when i get the ball well flighted it drifts, dips, bounces, turns, the full package. at least now if i bowl a ball that gets dragged down and doesnt turn though it is still inline with the stumps!! my length has suffered a great deal as a result of my change in action, but im sure this can be resolved with some more practice. i know the issues causing my inconsistencies in length so i can work on those next.

ive completely lost all of my variations off of a run up, all i can bowl is small to medium leg breaks and top spinners. everything else flies up in the air! il just have to work back upto them slowly from without a run up, and then gradually increase the speeds.

something ive noticed about my action is that "exploding at the crease" is a hugely disturbing aspect to an action. exploding in my eyes means to approach at less than 100% effort, then suddenly increase your efforts to 100% at the point of delivery. youre basically accelerating into the delivery, and this is another cause of many of my issues. i found that by approaching at 70%, and then delivering at 70% everything clicked into place. trying to exert massive amounts of effort in the final stage of the delivery is in my opinion detrimental, you need to already be close to maximum effort before you take your delivery stride. i can now gradually increase the effort to 100% at all times, but trying to put all of the energy in at the last second just causes timing issues, or at least i found.

the final aspects of my action that i considered were my front foot position and my front arm position. the front foot doesnt point down the wicket, i found that just didnt help, its more comfortable pointing at about 30 degrees down the leg side and that helps me to rotate. i think the foot pointing down the wicket is more a trait of a seam bowler, im not sure it holds any relevance to a leg spinner, but everyone has to go with whatever works for them. with regards my arm, im getting it straighter and higher, and thats helping to get my weight backwards before the delivery and then transfer it forwards during the delivery and increase the energy transfer and rotation.

i laid down some large wooden blocks for target practice today as well. they were extremely helpful! theres a big pile of these huge wooden blocks sat by the pavillion for some reason, about 30" long, by 12" wide and 6" tall. i had one in front of the stumps on its side (so it was long and tall) at a position that was too full across the stumps, and would result in a full toss delivery. i then had 2 of them the same facing down the wicket inline with leg stump (making an L shape with the long part of the L inline with leg stump and the short part closest to the stumps). basically the aim was to land the ball alongside the blocks on the offside, and to not hit the one blocking the stumps. this proved very succesful, on occasion id still pitch leg side, but when i did i seemed to find a lot more turn to compensate, and most deliveries were coming back in at the stumps.

all in all a good session, but as always, theres a ton of new issues to resolve next time. it feels like watching an episode of Lost - you get to the end of an new episode with a few answers to questions from episodes before, but youve found twice as many new questions in the new episode!! it doesnt feel like its going anywhere, but ultimately it is.

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

ive thought about it. but it kinda goes against everything ive ever heard from every leg spinner and coach lol. they always say that spin comes first, the rest will follow. i dont have too much of a problem identifying issues, my problem is more in resolving them. also, my finger action has become quite an important part of my length. because im using more overspin this is helping my length. once i find my length and rhythm i can then turn my hand to all of the other angles and things just slot into place.

im not too disheartened by pitching the ball off line. i know that just bowling lots of deliveries eventually should correct that. so long as the length is good and the ball is spinning im fairly happy there. also, if i bowl in an open space as opposed to the nets i find that my line improves a LOT. i think having the nets there throws my co-ordination off.

the thing that bothers me is when my consistency isnt there (like tonight) and i cant even replicate the same line and length outside leg stump every ball, but nothing has changed from my last session to this one (literally 24 hours ago), and i just cant recapture the same form. also it bothers me when the ball doesnt turn off of the wicket in a similar manner every delivery, even if im pitching the ball in the same area with the same seam angle and spin (generally when i get my action working, the turn is consistent).

again though, i think time will fix that. i tend to find that my first ball of the day is always a really good one. then things slowly go downhill for the next hour. then i bowl a couple of good ones out of nowhere, find a rhythm, and things get really good. and then il bowl well until i get too tired to bowl anymore (these are the sessions where i end up excited and make long posts on here). i need to find some way of removing that hour in the middle though, and just getting straight down to the good stuff i kinda make a point about never finishing a session until ive bowled a few good balls in a row so that my confidence is always high when i leave, and my enthusiasm to get back practicing again is strong. if i went home after an hour of awful bowling then im less eager to get back out there. some days i leave feeling pretty sore because its taken 2 hours of hard work, with some anger thrown in during the middle to bowl anything decent. tonight was a little like that, but the end result was good.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Jim I'd nomimate your 70% effort through the crease as your optimum 100%. The secret is to get a nice smooth action that builds and explodes through the crease at what feels like a nice controlled climax to the build up.

It's good to see that you're working through all your issues and it was good to hear Warne describing in general terms how much practice he did and he does say towards the end that "It takes years and years and years" and he also advocates a Peter Philpott approach in that every moment that you've got spare, you pick up a ball and you go and bowl it giving it a big flick and when you can't do that you just flick the ball anyway when you're just hanging around. Warne needs to make these comments more formally, he should make a video or write a book.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

But it's not like you don't understand the principles of how to spin the ball, you know the drills and stuff and it strikes me that if you were go back to a really basic approach and iron out all your bowling fundamentals, it would then be easier to bring back the spin. It's like you need to create a good solid basis on which to build on all of the details. A naff analogy would be to compare building a lovely house onto a sand dune rather than a granite base (It's late that's the best I can come up with)! But I'm not a coach, so maybe it's best to stick with them?

Or perhaps ease up on the bowling for a couple or few days and go back to it, I find that helps quite a bit sometimes?

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Jim I'd nomimate your 70% effort through the crease as your optimum 100%. The secret is to get a nice smooth action that builds and explodes through the crease at what feels like a nice controlled climax to the build up.

It's good to see that you're working through all your issues and it was good to hear Warne describing in general terms how much practice he did and he does say towards the end that "It takes years and years and years" and he also advocates a Peter Philpott approach in that every moment that you've got spare, you pick up a ball and you go and bowl it giving it a big flick and when you can't do that you just flick the ball anyway when you're just hanging around. Warne needs to make these comments more formally, he should make a video or write a book.

Warne used to practise and demonstrate spin on a pool table much like Bosquanet and Grimmett

The Philpott "backspinning topspinner" ( Doug Ring slider) is another delivery that can be worked on against a wall. You should work towards a straight seam and a straight bounce off the wall. The wall never lies.

 

[Paulinho]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I've been told that when you're bowling well you should count the rhythm of your run up and delivery (like dance steps) and when things go wrong try and get back to that rhythm. Rhythm is something that is hugely overlooked when people are trying to learn wrist spin (or any form of bowling) as gaining the muscle memory needed to get a repetitive action (or at least parts of it) can be helped hugely by memorizing a simple rhythm rather than thinking about the detail of the action. I definitely guilty of the this myself though

I'm unsure of what do regarding sorting out your basics to be honest. I've heard coaches say sort out your basic action first (sometimes just bowling medium pace) and others say always spin it hard because if you learn everything always spinning it hard it will never be an issue for you. I think the answer is time and patients which ever way you choose though. I know one thing for sure is that a good set of basics is the key to success.

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

There was a young bowler from Adelaide who made the news a couple of years ago. His trick was he was ambidextrous and would come in and bowl left handed and right handed off spin in the same over. the batsmen soon started to complain but he must have been within the laws because he was allowed to bowl this way. I have not heard how has been going lately.

I suppoose if batsmen can change their stance and grip and alter their status from left handed to righthanded as the bowler bowls , bowlers can do the same thing.

 

[sadspinner]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Have you tried bowling at a target on a good line and length jim? Start with a biggish target and try to keep your head steady on delivery. It helps getting visual fixation, and your body sort of gets a feel for line and length.

Something else you may try is bowling off a shorter distance at first, when you get a better line and length move to a longer distance.

These two tricks helped me bowl better line and length, even though about 5% of my deliveries would be considered wide. The other thing is as paulinho said, count the steps loudly to learn to get into a rhythm.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

More interesting stuff from Warne here - Sky Sports | Clips & Catch-up | Latest Videos | Ashes 09 don't know if you can all see this as it may be restricted to UK viewing or something. But here he talks about Panesar and the fact that Panesar hasn't gone forward with his bowling and has stagnated and he also mentions coaches in the context of Panesar implying that Panesar may be listening to too many people and getting himself all confused. If that's the case I'd say that English spin bowling is in a sorry state.

Apparently following up on the point I made about the ECB missing out by signing up to SKY exclusivity, a commentator on a sport radio show here made exactly the same point saying that in 2005 he couldn't take his dog for a walk for fear of small boys shouting the name of Flintoff and balls wizzing around his ears, whereas this year in the same town he hasn't seen a single kid playing cricket or talk about any cricket. His final conclusion was that SKY and the ECB had disenfranchised possibly 10's of thousands of small boys from the chance of becoming cricketers and that may affect the chances of us winning the Ashes in the future.

 

[Paulinho]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

When I first started bowling leg spin in school I would bowl with a hula hoop on the wicket about 9ft down. it was a great place to start. The teacher said that later we would introduce cones or something like that to bowl over to learn flight but we never got arounds to it.

years later I had a coaching session at old trafford and the coach put a disk about the size of a CD again about 9ft down on line or just outside leg stump. I hit it first time and hit off stump, the bloke thought I was a genius. The followinig 60 balls or so convinced him that I was not .

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

There was a young bowler from Adelaide who made the news a couple of years ago. His trick was he was ambidextrous and would come in and bowl left handed and right handed off spin in the same over. the batsmen soon started to complain but he must have been within the laws because he was allowed to bowl this way. I have not heard how has been going lately.

I suppoose if batsmen can change their stance and grip and alter their status from left handed to righthanded as the bowler bowls , bowlers can do the same thing.

Yeah he must be able to as long as he tells the umpire?

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

i often put down a target. usually its just a branch thats fallen off of a tree nearby lol, or a piece of wood, whatever is lying around, sometimes i use rocks. il put the target inline with leg stump, and have it so it points towards the stumps, and position it so that the length is about 3 feet either side of what id regard as optimal.

then il aim to bowl the ball inside of the stick/wood/rocks at any point along its length. the length is never an issue, its always the line. il usually find myself bowling 6-12" leg side of the target instead of the other way around. ive been meaning to try the hula hoop method for ages, it makes the most sense.

i often start off bowling from a shorter distance to find a little rhythm, then move backwards slowly. i thought i had accurately measured the wicket length, but last week i discovered ive been practicing from about 8 feet further back than i should have been!! that yielded an instant improvement in my length and accuracy.

i started trying the counting thing yesterday on my run up. its hard to know if it worked or not.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

This is good as well - the points that Beefy makes about cricket balls and the fact that the whole set up these days is in favour of the batsman. Sky Sports | Clips & Catch-up | Latest Videos | Ashes 09

Scroll back till you reach the one titled 'Cricket balls'.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

i often put down a target. usually its just a branch thats fallen off of a tree nearby lol, or a piece of wood, whatever is lying around, sometimes i use rocks. il put the target inline with leg stump, and have it so it points towards the stumps, and position it so that the length is about 3 feet either side of what id regard as optimal.

then il aim to bowl the ball inside of the stick/wood/rocks at any point along its length. the length is never an issue, its always the line. il usually find myself bowling 6-12" leg side of the target instead of the other way around. ive been meaning to try the hula hoop method for ages, it makes the most sense.

i often start off bowling from a shorter distance to find a little rhythm, then move backwards slowly. i thought i had accurately measured the wicket length, but last week i discovered ive been practicing from about 8 feet further back than i should have been!! that yielded an instant improvement in my length and accuracy.

i started trying the counting thing yesterday on my run up. its hard to know if it worked or not.

Again I have to say that if your line is so variable it doesn't seem to make sense to bowl leg-side if you've got an off-side field or do you set your field in accordance to your bowling that side. I'd say with that much variation in your line you'd be far better off bowling off-side to force catches and even pick up the odd wicket hitting the stumps?

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

More interesting stuff from Warne here - Sky Sports | Clips & Catch-up | Latest Videos | Ashes 09 don't know if you can all see this as it may be restricted to UK viewing or something. But here he talks about Panesar and the fact that Panesar hasn't gone forward with his bowling and has stagnated and he also mentions coaches in the context of Panesar implying that Panesar may be listening to too many people and getting himself all confused. If that's the case I'd say that English spin bowling is in a sorry state.

Apparently following up on the point I made about the ECB missing out by signing up to SKY exclusivity, a commentator on a sport radio show here made exactly the same point saying that in 2005 he couldn't take his dog for a walk for fear of small boys shouting the name of Flintoff and balls wizzing around his ears, whereas this year in the same town he hasn't seen a single kid playing cricket or talk about any cricket. His final conclusion was that SKY and the ECB had disenfranchised possibly 10's of thousands of small boys from the chance of becoming cricketers and that may affect the chances of us winning the Ashes in the future.

The ecb have taken short term profit over the long term interest of the game. Despite winning the ashes England still must have a problem as its best three batsmen are south africans not yorkshiremen.

Murdoch has dudded several sports this way. The ashes coverage will remain free in australia due to parliament but other cricket coverage can go to pay tv.

Hopefully the cricket got through to enough kids and parents to at least get them interested.